Personal Training Plan: Week 1 Review

Well, last week was my first week on the new training plan (found here) and go figure, there was already an alteration due to Real Life getting in the way! A niece and nephew of mine came out to Virginia with their grandparents for a wedding about 3 hours away... but the niece and nephew weren't invited to the wedding itself, so that mean that Saturday, on my long-run day, I instead drove 3 hours each direction and spent as much time as I could with those two awesome little guys rather than run. As a result, the extra mileage that I added this week, above and beyond anything I've done in the past, was pushed a day earlier and done on Friday evening instead of Saturday morning.

Despite the shift, the shins are still lovin' it. Week 1: 16 miles.

I didn't want to say it was a success on Saturday, despite feeling great then, because it's shown in the past that the aches aren't really fully known and understood until the next scheduled run, which in this case was today.

I'm so excited! Just one month ago I was stuck doing 13 miles a week and no more and here I am, after making just a few simple adjustments (recognizing the high arches and getting inserts, slowing down on most runs, spreading out the mileage more)... and bam, 16 miles - that's almost a 25% increase in mileage just because I'm doing it differently!

Too cool.

OH! Also, thank you to everyone who took the time to critique what I had shared. Your voices have sung in unison and I have heard your feedback. I've decided that I'll be playing Tuesday by ear and assuming that there are no aches leftover from the weekend long run on Monday, I'll be switching my hard/fast day to Tuesday instead of Thursday..

I'll also be doing the same thing with my Saturday long runs - on weeks immediately before rest weeks I'll check in with my body and see if I'm not feeling good enough to tack on just 1 more mile... that's because my overall mileage increase is quite light and 1 extra mile should do no harm... but the purpose of this extra mile is to steal one from the rest week to follow. That way the week before the rest week will be just a tinge more difficult, while the rest week itself will be a tinge more restful.

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